John Francis Hartle

Date Revised: 4 Jan 2018 by Jane Smith

John Hartle - Find A Grave

John Francis Hartle - Family Search

The passages from this book tells a little bit of how John Q.A. Hartle and his children traveled from Texas to Washington in a covered wagon train. The entire book is posted in the documents under John and his children.

TALES OF THE TRAIL by ARABELLA FULTON

After she Had Passed Her Eightieth

Page 3
Up to 80% of the first 150 pioneers to settle in the Methow Valley were either their children, children of relatives or close friends of Frank and Arabella Fulton coming from Wise County in Texas and later to the Ellensburg area in Washington. Four of Frank and Belle Fulton’s children (Lee, Frank,Jr., Nellie, and Jacqueline) along with numerous nephews, nieces and in-laws and some of their parents, came to stake out homesteads in the Methow Valley including Hartles, Pattersons, Barnharts, Germans, and Sullivans. Mason Thurlow (perhaps the first farmer in Methow Valley), lived with Frank and Belle Fulton in Texas for several years during his teenage years. Mason Thurlow came to Northwest Territory with the Fultons on the same wagon train. (The book only mentions Patterson this one time.)

Page 182
The next day Frank received word that all the wagons would be ready to start tomorrow, April 15, 1883, and that they would meet at a designated place three miles beyond Decatur.

Page 187
When we left Denver our train consisted of but eleven wagons, five of them being ours. There were with us now, Mr. Harris and his family; Jake Bingham and his family; Jewett Davis and his family' Brother Thornhill and his family; Mason Thurlow, the Missouri boy who was with us in Texas, but now with a family of his own; and my brother-in-law, John Hartle and his family of children. (John's wife had died not long after the birth of his last child so John would have been traveling alone with his children.)

Page 196
A mile or two down the Columbia a small creek came out of the mountains and along this creek were two or three Settlers. Up this creek we followed a dim road that finally ended on Mason's Flat on a small body of fairly level land on the north slope of Chiliwhist Mountain. Here our road ended entirely with the Chiliwhist Mountain between us and our desired destination. Up to this time not more than four wagons had reached the Methow Valley. The first wagon to enter the valley belonged to N. Stone who settled on the flat just below Heckendorn. It was plotted by N. Stone, Harvey. Nickell, John Hartle, and Tony Cogswell. The second wagon was that of Harvey H. Nickell. While I think there were two other wagons that had gone in the fall before, that is, 1888, I do not remember whose they were at this time.

Page 197
Among those I will mention was B.F. Pearrygin on Pearrygin Lake, Charles Randall on upper Beaver Creek, Joe Frazer at mouth of Frazer Creek, Dan Bamber on Bamber Flat, George L. Thompson near Twin Lakes, and John Hartle, an uncle by marriage, on Bear Creek. A companion of Hartle's, Tony Cogswell by name, had located a claim at the mouth of Pipestone Canyon, but did not get his cabin built, so he and Hartle decided to winter together in the Hartle cabin on Bear Creek. These two men were among the first white men to take up winter quarters in the Methow Valley. It is possible that Randall, Frazer, and Bamber, on Beaver Creek and Thompson and Pearrygin, in the upper valley wintered there this same winter; that is, 1887-88. Of this I cannot be sure. In the late spring of 1888, Hartle and Cogswell returned to Kittitas Valley for harvest, bringing a very flattering report of the Valley and the fine winter they had spent there.

Page 197 and 198
FIRST LOG CABINS

Naturally, coming into a new country as was the Methow at that time, all the material for preparing for winter was standing in the forest, the ax froe and broad-ax had to be called into action. Logs were hewn for the body of the house and only dirt was used for roofing. First, small poles were laid from side wall to ridge pole. These were covered with a thick layer of hay, preferably wild rye grass, then a thick layer of dirt. Such was the first cabin built by Uncle John Hartle on his Bear Creek claim in 1887. It had a fireplace built of cobblestone across one corner with a stick chimney plaster with mud extending up above the roof a short distance. The lumber, three boards 1x2, 6 ft. long for the door to this cabin, was carried on a pack horse from Malott on the Okanogan River. During the fall of 1889, Uncle Hartle built a nicer cabin near this old one. It was provided with a "shake" roof and floor of boards 4 feet long, split "bastard fashion" from pine logs. These strips also provided casing for small windows. Uncle,having vacated the old cabin, offered it to me for the winter, and late in October I moved in with my wife and 2 1/2 months old baby, and during the long, cold winter that was to follow the only floor and hearthstone we were to have was a large oxhide stretched across the corner of the room in front of the fireplace. This oxhide, before the long winter was over, became the playground for our little girl and made a very good substitute for a hardwood floor. it could be swept and kept cleaner than the average soft wood floor.